The First Word: Debate, Interrupted

On this day — the House gets ready to take up Voter ID legislation again; Democrats say they’re ready to throw up a roadblock to the legislation again; campus-carry moves to the Senate after a night of raucous debate; bullying legislation got it’s first hearing yesterday; and Sen. Mario Gallegos attacks fellow Democrats as his campaign against the HISD superintendent marches on

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***Voter Wars: A New Hope

Republicans hope they’ll be able to pass controversial Voter ID legislation later on today, while their Democratic colleagues hope they’ll be able to derail the bill yet again. Late yesterday, Democratic sources told the Austin Bureau’s Gary Scharrer they have another round of point-of-orders ready to go to stall the bill yet again. This next round of parliamentary challenges has been described as even more solid than the last point-of-order that sent the bill back to committee on Monday.

So what’s the end game? Democrats will block the bill for as long as they can with points of orders. Once they’ve exhausted all of those, they’ll present a seemingly endless list of amendments to the bill; most of them won’t be accepted. The Democrats are doing all of this because — even though in the end, the Republicans will (probably) win — it allows them to score political points with their base and it helps to lay the groundwork for a potential legal challenge to the law down the road.

***Appropriations Approval

UPDATE:The House Appropriations Committee voted out the House’s budget proposal along a party line vote of 18-7.

The House Appropriations Committee is expected to vote out its version of a marked up base budget to the entire House early Wednesday morning. While the budget should pass the House, it’s thought to be dead on arrival in the Senate because the spending cuts are too draconian for a growing group of Democrats and Republicans. Meanwhile, various budget proposals floating around in the Senate are thought to be dead on arrival in the House because there isn’t the political will in the lower body right now to spend the rest of the Rainy Day Fund.

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***Schoolboard Bluster

Local politics were front and center as the Senate Education Committee considered a bill that would allow Houston ISD schools that are part of the Apollo 20 program to continue to start teaching before the beginning of the school year. Sen. Mario Gallegos used the hearing on the bill to further his campaign against the Apollo 20 pilot program and HISD superintendent Terry Grier.

Nearly the entire Houston state Senatorial delegation got caught in the crossfire. Gallegos upbraided Sen. Rodney Ellis for introducing the bill. They got in for the better part of 15 minutes and at one point, Gallegos pointedly asked Ellis “can you read?”

Later during the hearing on the bill, Gallegos got into a heated argument on with Sen. Dan Patrick and attempted to interrupt Sen. Royce West’s questioning of Superintendent Terry Grier at one point.

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***Bullying Bill

The Senate Education Committee also took some time to consider three different anti-bullying measures. Nolan Hicks (who’s totally not me) reports:

One of the bills — introduced by Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth — initially included a reporting mechanism that would have required school districts to report to the state how many bullying incidents occur and who they’re directed against.

The language was removed after coming under fire from conservative groups, who charged it could grant gay children special rights and protections.

Changes made to other bullying bills included the removal of the enforcement mechanism from legislation introduced by Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, to make it more palatable to conservative legislators.